If the victims had
resisted, if, like Madame du Barry, they had struggled with the
executioner, it would have excited horror.'
'The cries of even a pig,' said Madame de Beaumont, 'make it disagreeable
to kill it.'
'Sanson,' I said, 'long survived the Revolution; he made a fortune and
lived in retirement at Versailles. A lady was run away with between
Versailles and Paris. An elderly man, at considerable risk, stopped her
horse. She was very grateful, but could not get from him his name. At
last she traced him, and found that it was Sanson.'
'Sanson,' said Beaumont, 'may have been an honest man. Whenever a place
of _bourreau_ is vacant, there are thirty or forty candidates, and they
always produce certificates of their extraordinary kindness and humanity.
It seems to be the post most coveted by men eminent for their
benevolence.'
'How many have you?' I asked.
'Eighty-six,' he answered. 'One for each department.'
'And how many executions?'
'About one hundred a year in all France.'
'And what is the salary?'
'Perhaps a couple of thousand francs a year.'
'Really,' said Ampere, 'it is one of the best parts of the patronage of
the Minister of the Interior.
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